The day following my exploration of Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks, I headed towards Albuquerque, New Mexico. Originally, I was going to head west toward White Sands National Monument. But when I checked the White Sands website, I saw this alert; occasionally the road into the monument can close due to missile testing. Look here for the latest information. So I checked and sure enough, the day I'm supposed to be heading to White Sands, there's going to be missile testing. The website when further to say they could give a range as to when the road would be closed, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't last longer.
So I now have a slight dilemma on my hands. Do I risk it and take a three hour drive on a mountainous road only to be told that the road into the park is closed? I decided that I really didn't want to rush the extra driving, so I took a different route heading northwest directly to Albuquerque. Because I got to Albuquerque earlier than anticipated, I decided to visit Petroglyph National Monument which was just a couple of miles north of my motel. I'd never heard of this particular monument before, but as long as I was there, I decided I was going to explore parts of it.
My first stop was the visitors center off of Unser Boulevard just north of Interstate 40. As a teenager, I spent many springs and summers in Albuquerque visiting my cousins who lived there, but I wasn't aware of this park at that time. This was mainly because it was established as a state park in the 70s and was authorized as a national monument by an act of Congress in 1990. I got a map and decided that I was going to explore the Boca Negra Canyon area, mainly because it looked like that was a place where the petroglyphs were easily accessible and plentiful.
I got there at a perfect time, since most people who had been there were departing, so I had the area pretty much to myself and was able to enjoy looking at the different petroglyphs as I climbed up on the trail through the volcanic boulders that were piled up on this hillside/escarpment. After exploring that first trail, I then wandered over to the Macaw Trail, so named because of the prominent bird petroglyph right at the start of that trail. I walked that trail and figured I spent about two hours in the park before deciding to head back to my motel room for the night.
As I walked along the trails, I couldn't help but think about what might have been going through the Native American's minds as he or she scraped off the desert varnish on the rocks to create this piece of artwork. Were they trying to convey how beautiful that particular bird was, or were they merely creating an image of their food, much like what many people do today with their Instagram accounts? Also, what was going through the minds of some of the people from the present day who felt it necessary to scrape and scratch out things on the rock? As you can clearly see in the second photo, there are extra scratches that were mostly likely done by a present day visitor. Since Christianity wasn't in the area 700 to 2000 years ago when these petroglyphs were created, I know that the modern day cross I observed on one of the rocks was definitely not supposed to be there. This graffiti is pure and simple, vandalism.
And because the National Park Service is underfunded, it's not surprising that these national treasures get defaced and sometimes even stolen away. When I visited Craters of the Moon National Monument in August, there was clear evidence in several areas where lava flows had been broken off and taken home with people. It's almost like we have to lock up everything behind bullet proof cases in order to protect the treasures out there from idiots who feel that it's for them and who cares about anyone else. I was taught to look, don't touch unless it's OK to touch. I respected that rule growing up and I respect it today. Sometimes I don't get the attitude of some people. And yes, I can hear the grumpy old man in me right now yelling, "GET OFF MY LAWN!"
So I'll get off of my soapbox right now and tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed this extra highlight to my trip, one that I wouldn't have had time to see if my plans hadn't been altered in the first place. Life gave me a different thing to enjoy that day.
After touring Carlsbad Caverns, I had some extra time and I really didn't want to just hole up in my motel room, so I headed south out of New Mexico into Texas towards Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Guadalupe Mountains is an extension of Carlsbad Caverns, except, this is above ground. In other words, the limestone marine fossil reef that's below ground in New Mexico, is above ground in Texas, forming the tallest mountains in the entire state of Texas.
The park is primarily a wilderness area, so there are very few roads in the park, either paved or dirt roads. Consequently, you really need to be prepared when you visit this park. The original plan was to camp here, then head up to Carlsbad Caverns and explore what I could here. As luck would have it, this would have been the only place where I would have camped on this road trip, so I opted to leave the camping gear at home and just motel it on this trip. Although the campsites are first come first served, this park has a lot of visitors in the off season because the climate is fairly mild and it would have been problematic to even find a good campsite. So it ended up being a day trip.
I explored the visitors center, took in the National Park movie they offer, then decided to explore what I could in the time I had left in the day. I actually drove out of the park further south and to the west to get some great views of El Capitan, which is the main piece of rock at the end of the exposed mountain range. I'm not sure if you can actually see Guadalupe Peak, which is the highest point in Texas, from the road. I believe the tall peak to the right of El Capitan in the sign photo is obscuring Guadalupe Peak. There is a trail leading to the top of the peak, but that's a good 8 hour round trip, so I opted for a hike in McKittrick Canyon, which is very near the northern border of Texas and southern border of New Mexico.
I ended up hiking the nature trail at McKittrick Canyon, which was a short loop trail, which was very enjoyable and allowed me to get a feel for the entire park, but if I'd had more time, I would have worked my way back up into the canyon as there was a lot to explore there. As noted above, had I camped there for a couple of extra days, I think I would have also hiked to the top of Guadalupe Peak. Eventually, I can see myself coming back here, possibly in the next five years. I'll be in somewhere in Texas in 2024 for the next solar eclipse of the sun and this might be a good starting point. Hike a day or two, then work my way down to Big Bend National Park, then further east to view the eclipse. More road trips down the road.
Last month, I went on an epic 10 day road trip through four states. The second day was devoted to driving from Tucson, Arizona to Carlsbad, New Mexico where I would spend the next couple of days exploring both Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Guadalupe Mountains National Park to the south in Texas. I'll write about Guadalupe Mountains in another post later on.
The drive over to Carlsbad was rather uneventful, outside of getting into town after dark and having the Jeep basically sucking on fumes. No services on the road and I'm already 100 miles in with 130 to go and the sign says, next services, 100 miles. Ok, I can make that. Yeah, well the distance approximater in the Jeep doesn't take into account hilly terrain where the gas mileage and thus the mileage range of the vehicle will go down. Going up and over the Guadalupe Mountains tested my nerve, but the Jeep made it down the north side of the Mountains and into town where I was able to fill up the tank with about a gallon of gas to spare. I could just see my wife, had she been there, but I'm glad she wasn't.
The next morning, I got to the park fairly early, as I wanted to have a lot of time to explore the cave. I'd been there one other time in, I believe, 1983, but I don't remember much of it as my friend and I went through quickly since we had other things on our mind and places to go. I had no place to go that day since this was one of my destination stops. Still, I arrived and the cave wasn't open yet, but I got in line and got my ticket (which was free because of the National Park annual pass my daughter and son-in-law bought for me as a Christmas/retirement gift).
I got my phone disinfected to prevent the possibility of carrying in white nose syndrome to the bats and began my journey into the darkness. I chose to use the natural entrance as opposed to the elevator mainly because I wanted to have a more natural experience. Taking the natural entrance also allowed me to see the swallows that nest at the entrance take off in the morning. Here's a video of them I took that day.
Coming into the caves is like descending an 80 story building, but mostly on a paved pathway. Many of you know that I hurt my knee back in August, so this would be a serious test of my knee, but it passed with almost flying colors. Going down is always more difficult than going up on knees and this was no exception. By the time I was down at the bottom, my knee was barking at me, but it stopped once the path leveled out.
Perhaps it was the time of year, but I remember that there didn't seem to be as much reverence of the majesty of the place the last time I was there. I'll blame that on summer tourists. I remember it being so much more crowded back then and there wasn't as much time to just look around at the immensity of the cave formations. Coming in the off season was definitely the way to go. I was able to wander the trail in a logical fashion so I could see all the main formations as well as take my time in reading the various information kiosks set up along the trail. I'm not sure I can adequately describe the enormity of the place. It's huge. To give you an idea, if you look at the second photo, the drapery seen there is probably 50 feet tall. It's very hard to see the scale of this place, but I do know that once you're down in the Big Room, it's basic layout is much like a giant cross that's larger than the Capital building in Washington, D.C.
Once I had walked the entire trail, I ended up down near the elevators and decided at that time to take advantage of them going to the surface. I think many of the cave explorers that day, did the very same thing - walk down via the natural entrance and then come back to the surface via the elevator. 80 stories in just about 2 minutes. The last photo was taken along the Big Room trail and it's called the Chinese Theater. I really like the way this photo turned out, especially with the darkness of the non-lit areas around the edges of the photo.
Once up at the surface again, I chose to wander around the visitors center for a little bit, before I headed back to the Jeep. From there, I went out to find some lunch. I'd spent the better part of three hours underground and it's really amazing how you lose your sense of time, when you don't have any reference like the sun to tell you the passage of time. After lunch, I drove south into Texas to explore the same general area, but the above ground part in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
Once again, it's the end of the month, which means it's time, once again for P.J.'s monthly blogging challenge. The theme for this month was liquid. I have to be honest with this one. When I first saw the theme at the beginning of the month, I figured there would be no way that I would be able to come up with anything for the theme, let alone five shots. But, once the month got underway, I saw ways that this would work, so bear with me as I think I'm stretching the boundaries a little bit with this theme, but at least I didn't have to resort to any photos of snow. Snow? Yeah, I actually saw it snow in a city for only the second time in my entire life, but that's another story that I'll tell at another time.
I'm actually doing these in chronological order, which means this first shot was taken on October 20th. Yes, I did the entire theme in less than 10 days. At first, I thought that I might get by with 5 different cave photos, because after all, what creates a cave but water? And so I figured I was done, but I'll not post a bunch of photos of the caverns, because after all was said and done, I was able to come up with 5 different liquid shots. And to also be honest here, this blog entry is sort of a teaser for other entries I'll be writing about next month.
1. Phoenix, Arizona
In my last post, I mentioned that I would be on an extended road trip and I just came back from that one Sunday. The main purpose of the trip was a visit to the Denver Art Museum to see a very large collection of Claude Monet paintings. The collection was only going to be there from October to February, so I figured this would be the best time to go to avoid really bad weather. Anyway, the first day of the trip took me through Phoenix. And, as usual, I spent some of the time on the drive geocaching. I ended up in downtown Phoenix, where there is a large war memorial to all of the different wars our country has been involved in. Part of this park is where I discovered the USS Arizona's anchor. Pulled from the liquid depths of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, this anchor is on permanent display at this park in Phoenix. Around the base of the anchor are all of the names of the brave men who perished on that fateful day in 1941.
2. Guadalupe Mountains National Park
This was a new place I'd never visited before and originally, I had planned on camping here, but things fell through on the opposite end of the trip, so I ended up staying at motels along the way. This was actually a good thing because camping was very limited in this park. The Guadalupes are the extension of Carlsbad Caverns, only above ground. I spent most of the morning exploring the Caverns, and after having thoroughly explored them, I ventured south to this national park, just across the border in Texas. This park is mostly wilderness, which means little to no roads and mostly backcountry camping and hiking, something I wasn't equipped for on this trip, but I was able to get a feel for this area nonetheless.
West Texas is pretty much desert and the Guadalupe Mountains rise like an island out of this desert, providing refuge for an abundance of wildlife and plant life. I took this photo of this prickly pear cactus mainly because I liked the contrast of the brown and greens with the light violet of the flowers on the left. And if you're ever stuck out in the desert without water, you can, in a pinch, open up the cactus and get some liquid refreshment which will sustain you for a little bit.
3. Monet
The reason this trip happened in the first place was because of this collection of paintings. I can't remember where I first heard about this exhibition, but as soon as I knew about it, I started making plans to see it. The exhibition was falling at a perfect time: the fall and winter following my retirement. Since this exhibition was only happening during this time period, I probably wouldn't have been able to see it since I was working during most of that time. That's one of the benefits of retirement. I highly recommend it.
The main building of the Denver Art Museum is undergoing extensive renovation and the museum is in the annex building across the street. This means the collection of artwork on display is small at this time, but they had some interesting works dealing with the study of light.
The bottom two floors of the annex were dedicated to Claude Monet and his life. Each of the patrons were given audio guides to learn more about the paintings and about different periods of his life. The galleries were arranged in approximately a chronological order. Since he created most of his lily pad and pond paintings near the end of his life, this was the last room of the gallery that I walked through. The way the liquid paint created the illusion of the liquid water in the lily pond is just amazing, in my opinion.
4. Chocolate Porter
Coming home later in the week, I ended up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of the nice things about traveling is checking out the local cuisine. There were times on this trip where I'd eat at a place that I was familiar with because I just wanted a quick meal and there were times when I wanted something a little bit more tasty and different. That night in Albuquerque was one such nice, so I decided to try a local barbecue place. It was recommended to me by the waitress that I try the burnt ends sandwich, a decision which I will not regret. I also have an affinity for dark, very dark beers, the kind you can almost chew. This chocolate porter certainly filled that bill and went quite well with the barbecue sandwich I had. The Nexus Silver Taproom will be someplace I will probably visit again should my travels take me through northern New Mexico.
5. Continental Divide
Finally, on my next to last day of my trip, I traveled from Albuquerque to Flagstaff, Arizona where I would spend my last night. Heading toward Denver, I missed when I exactly crossed over the continental divide, but this spot along Interstate 40 is very hard to miss. With signs on either side of the freeway, it's pretty much a spot where travelers stop and get their photos taken.
It's also the spot, where liquid falling to earth gets separated. Rain and snow falling on the eastern side of the continental divide will eventually make it to the Gulf of Mexico. In this case, the water would flow into the Rio Grande, which forms the southern border of Texas with Mexico. Rain falling on the western side would eventually flow into the Gulf of California and into the Pacific Ocean. Most of the rain that fell here would flow eventually into the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon.
It's always intrigued me how cartographers were able to graphically map this out and figure out where each little stream would eventually drain. If you've ever looked at a map of the continental divide, you'll see some very interesting details. In southern Wyoming, it actually splits in two, creating a basin where the water doesn't flow to either, but either evaporates or flows downhill to the lowest point in that basin where it percolates back down into the groundwater. Further north, in Yellowstone National Park, there's a lake that literally sits right on top of the continental divide. The lake has two outlets, one flowing to the Atlantic Ocean and the other flowing to the Pacific Ocean.
For hiking enthusiasts, there's also the Continental Divide Trail, a national trail which loosely follows the Continental Divide from the southern border of New Mexico all the way to the northern border of Montana. Somewhere in this area, I also crossed over that trail.
And there's my interpretation of the theme liquid. Some might call this a stretch, but it worked for me. Please check out P.J.'s blog and scroll down to the bottom. You'll see other blogs and their interpretations of the same theme. And as always, feel free to comment. I won't bite.
My last stop on this last road trip was Great Basin National Park. Located in eastern Nevada, it protects portion of the basin and range territory that comprises most of the central part of Nevada. One of the few glaciers in Nevada is in this park on Mt. Wheeler, which is the highest peak, at over 13,000 feet, contained solely within the state of Nevada. The park, which was created in 1986, expanded the original Lehman Caves National Monument, so there's also underground wonders here.
Nevada's Highway construction crews slowed me down quite a bit on the day I drove down to Great Basin. I probably lost an hour of time just sitting in the Jeep while road construction happened along my intended route. But, many areas talk about how they have two seasons: Winter and Road Construction. At least I wasn't adversely affected by it.
Once I got into the park, I immediately headed toward the campground, as it's first come first serve and it was late enough that it could be filling up, which is was. I think I was able to snag the next to the last campground site, but it was a nice site in my opinion. There was a small stream flowing through the center of the site, so I pitched my tent on the opposite bank. The water wasn't flowing very strong, but this site wouldn't be very ideal during high water instances, but it suited my needs perfectly for the next two nights.
The next morning, I went for a hike out to Stella Lake and then up to get as close to the glacier on Mt. Wheeler as I could. Since I was up above 10,000 feet, the air was thin, but the trail had lots of hikers on it, all enjoying the beautiful mountain air. Once I got fairly close to the glacier, I took some photos, and tried to remember back to the last time I was here about 15 years previously. That year, my two boys and I hiked a little bit closer than this shot was taken and actually walked on the glacier. I would have had to walk a lot further this year to get to the glacier because it's receded significantly over time. It's estimated that if current conditions continue to prevail, the glacier will be gone in the next 20 years. That's sad to think about.
After getting back from my hike, I then purchased a ticket for an underground tour of Lehman Caves. There are typical formations in this small cave. Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling, while stalagmites, might reach the ceiling. The cave, however, is most famous for its shield formations. These shields are two disks with a thin layer of water in between them. The water drips along the edges forming the cave formations. Carlsbad Caverns, in New Mexico has a grand total of 2 shields in the entire cave. Lehman Caves have over 300 shields and it's a tiny cave system compared to Carlsbad Caverns.
The park service is, at the same time, trying to combat White Nose Syndrome, which is a fungal infection that is fatal to bats. It's very contagious and has killed millions of bats in the eastern United States over the past 5 years. It has been identified in California, but no bats have been affected yet in this state, but the fungus has been found on brown bats in the state of Washington.
The rangers were relying on the honor system, but I felt that the people who were entering the caves were abiding by the rules set out. I have been in a cave in Idaho, so I had to disinfect my iPhone since I took it into the cave. I brought a second set of shoes on this camping trip, so I just wore the other shoes for this tour. They had ammonia baths for shoes if you didn't have a second pair to wear in the cave. Soak the soles for five minutes and you'll be okay.
Next week, my plan is to be in Carlsbad Caverns. I know I'm going to have to disinfect my phone again, but since then and now, I've purchased a new pair of shoes, so I'll be good to go for this trip. Hopefully, this infection will not spread much beyond where it is located now.
